Gold is not immutable

1993/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Kimika
• Geologia

In our society things are taken of gold as forever. In any case, the word is forever undeniable in crisis, as the things of the moment are increasingly valued. Gold seemed to be out of this crisis, but several French and British researchers have turned the previous hypothesis upside down.

According to them, certain physical and chemical conditions present in the soil modify the gold.

To make this claim, great work has been done in the heart of the Central African Republic and the equatorial jungle of Gabon. These included thousands of hours of microscope observation, hundreds of chemical analyses, and several mathematical and thermodynamic calculations. The analysis of samples has allowed to know the distribution of gold and the chemical map by pure and altered minerals.

The most surprising conclusion of these studies is that the closer the surface is, the more chemical changes manifest. According to thermodynamic models, gold dissolution and the addition of dissolved gold to marine chlorides and organic acids from plant degradation have been observed in fairly acidic pavements.

These episodes occur not only in tropical forests but also in temperate forests. Therefore, gold can be a good witness to changes in flooring. On the other hand, this discovery can offer significant help to efforts to find gold in Africa and in the tropics in general.